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A Tesla Mannequin Y is seen in a manufacturing corridor of the Tesla Gigafactory throughout the open day. In Grünheide, east of Berlin, the primary autos are to roll off the manufacturing line from the top of 2021.
Patrick Pleul | image alliance | Getty Photographs
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gained international reward for helping Ukraine as Russia started its brutal invasion. His aerospace firm switched on its satellite tv for pc web service, Starlink, to be used in Ukraine on the request of the nation’s digital transformation minister, Mykhailo Fedorov. His electrical automotive firm pitched in too, assembling Starlink tools and Powerwalls, power storage methods that may energy that tools, to ship to Ukraine.
However Tesla additionally has provide chain ties to Russia. Elon Musk’s electrical automobile maker has bought hundreds of thousands of euros price of aluminum from Rusal, an organization based by sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, in response to inner paperwork obtained by CNBC.
Rusal was once sanctioned by the US Treasury, which cited Russia’s “malign actions” on the time, however these sanctions had been lifted under former President Donald Trump in 2019. Tesla solely started shopping for aluminum from the corporate in late 2020.
Tesla purchases Rusal aluminum for casting components at its new automobile meeting plant outdoors of Berlin, in response to invoices, inner correspondence, and a number of other present and former workers who spoke with CNBC on situation of anonymity, citing worry of retaliation.
The aluminum can be utilized, amongst different issues, for casting and to make physique shells for the Tesla Mannequin Y, and has been utilized in manufacturing on new manufacturing traces on the Tesla plant in Brandenburg, Germany. That plant shouldn’t be absolutely up and working but, however not too long ago gained conditional approval to start out business manufacturing quickly. There is no indication that Rusal aluminum has been utilized in US manufacturing.
Tesla’s willingness to work with at the least one Russian provider shouldn’t be uncommon — ten of the world’s largest automakers purchase from at the least one tier-1 provider in Russia, in response to Interos, a world provide chain and threat administration analysis agency based mostly in Arlington, Virginia.
However Moscow’s aggression in opposition to Ukraine has thrown provider relationships into query, and compelled companies to ask whether or not they can legally and morally hold paying hundreds of thousands to firms that enrich the Russian federation and the Putin confidants who lead these companies. Inflation might play into these choices — Tesla CEO Elon Musk acknowledged on Sunday night that the corporate is dealing with significant inflationary pressure in the price of uncooked supplies.
CNBC has not discovered exactly how a lot Tesla has paid Rusal for metals to-date. CNBC requested Tesla if the corporate is taking steps to sever enterprise relationships with Rusal or another Russian firms, however Tesla didn’t reply.
A historical past of sanctions
Rusal, the second-largest aluminum provider on this planet, was as soon as among the many largest firms that the US ever placed on its sanctions listing. Earlier curbs had been lifted in January 2019 after the corporate’s billionaire founder, Oleg Deripaska, agreed to relinquish management and Rusal’s mum or dad firm, EN+ Group Worldwide, appointed new administrators to its board to satiate U.S. Treasury calls for for impartial administrators.
Deripaska went on to sue the US Treasury Division and its Workplace of Overseas Belongings Management to aim to reverse the sanctions that personally affected his wealth and status. A choose dismissed the case, nonetheless Deripaska has an attraction pending.
Since Russia’s 2022 siege on Ukraine started, Rusal has not been sanctioned once more by the US, and Deripaska’s standing with Putin is unknown. The billionaire has referred to as for peace, and Reuters reported that he stated on March 7, “The entire world might be completely different after these occasions and Russia might be completely different.”
Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska reacts in entrance of the workplace of Gorkovsky Vehicle Plant (GAZ) in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia April 16, 2019.
Maxim Shemetov | Reuters
Rusal’s controlling shareholder, EN+ Group Worldwide, is reportedly contemplating a switch of the corporate’s international assets to a brand new entity, which might don’t have any Russian homeowners, administration, or management.
Rusal declined to remark.
Rusal shouldn’t be Tesla’s sole or main aluminum provider. Tesla has labored for years with metals big Hydro as a extra important provider of aluminum, for instance. Based on Hydro’s web site, the corporate’s aluminum steel manufacturing amenities are based mostly all through Europe, Canada, Australia, Brazil and Qatar. “Two-thirds of our main aluminum manufacturing relies on renewable power,” the corporate boasts.
However Musk’s automotive firm has spent hundreds of thousands of Euros with Rusal because the finish of 2020, in response to invoices and different paperwork considered by CNBC. A German subsidiary of Tesla has traditionally paid the Swiss subsidiary of Rusal by an Austrian financial institution.
Tesla’s purchases of aluminum from Rusal started after a altering of the guard within the firm’s govt ranks and after Elon Musk introduced in November 2019 that Tesla would construct a manufacturing facility in Germany, in response to data and inner correspondence, and present and former workers conversant in the matter.
One former worker with direct information stated Tesla’s earlier CFO, Deepak Ahuja, was “allergic” to doing enterprise in or with Russia because of the the rise and impacts of Russian organized crime within the nation, and dangers of sanctions on any suppliers or companions in Russia following Moscow’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014.
After Ahuja introduced his resignation in January 2019, with Zachary Kirkhorn taking on as CFO in March that yr, Tesla labored with a consulting agency referred to as World Counsel Restricted to analyze the enterprise surroundings, market potential and dangers of working in Russia, in response to this former worker and inner data considered by CNBC.
Whereas Tesla determined to carry off on opening factories, gross sales, or service facilities in Russia indefinitely, the corporate was conscious that a few of its autos had been imported to Russia independently. As such, the corporate has created and maintains some automobile service manuals and different highway security paperwork pertaining to make use of of its automobiles in Russia.
By December 2020, Tesla determined to start out sourcing some aluminum from Rusal for casting at its new plant being in-built Germany and was doing so by February 2022.
‘An invasion of the worldwide provide chain by Russia’
Based on Interos, which screens international provide chains utilizing machine studying software program, ten of the world’s largest automakers all have at the least one direct provider in Russia, and 27 firms based mostly in Russia instantly provide these automotive firms. 4 of the biggest home automakers have direct, or tier 1, relationships with 13 completely different Russian suppliers.
Interos CEO and founder Jennifer Bisceglie stated, “The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is actually an invasion of the worldwide provide chain by Russia. In response, we are actually chopping components of our developed provide chain off by sanctions and warfare. Firms are responding by doing two things– one is stockpiling, shopping for as a lot as they will as quickly as they will. Past that, they’re on the lookout for different sources whether or not that is from one other place or from one other steel or materials that they will use instead.”
Kristine Pirnia, who leads the export controls and sanctions observe on the regulation agency Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, additionally spoke with CNBC about autos business disruption from the nascent warfare on Ukraine usually.
Pirnia famous that even when it stays authorized, and ethically justifiable, for automakers to work with Russian suppliers, banking targeted sanctions and the complexity of authorized compliance may make it almost not possible to maintain doing so.
“The US has been very considerate and strategic in respect to sanctions It has issued to-date.” Pirnia stated, “There’s not a blanket rule. Which means it’s important to do a number of steps of research on each transaction referring to Russia.”
Whereas automakers are working to grasp what their companies should change to stay compliant with new sanctions as they roll out, Pirnia defined, the business is most involved that it might be not possible to conduct monetary transactions with these Russian companies, because of the robust deal with banking in sanctions by Western governments.
Final week on Friday, President Joe Biden urged Congress to hitch the European Union in suspending regular commerce relations with Russia, which might put Russia on the identical tier as Cuba or North Korea and will make Russian metals prohibitively costly long-term for US firms like Tesla.


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November 8, 2010 | by Lars Aronsson
The Financial Times is reporting today that HTC is hiring staff in order to prepare for the launch of a potential app market that would sell apps and e-books – all according to a couple of insiders that are familiar with HTC’s plans.
The cloud service HTCSense.com, currently only officially supported by the Desire HD and Desire Z, might have been the first step in the Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer’s move to create its very own application store. Engadget points out that the HTC Hub section of the website already serves as an app discovery tool, and adding the option to buy apps as well seems fairly logical.
It’s starting to get hard to keep track of all these new rumored and announced application markets: Verizon V Cast, Amazon, Best Buy, Acer… Do you believe we need them all, and who will announce one next?

domain: news


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Advertising news & analysis
Mark Read, the chief executive at WPP Digital, has been named the global chief executive at Wunderman, replacing Daniel Morel.More
Latest advertising news
José Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, will feature in TV ads for Top Eleven, a free online football manager game developed by Nordeus.
Gocompare.com, the price comparison website, has aired a new ad, continuing the 'Go, Go Power' campaign that began during Christmas 2014.
Charles Watson, the group chairman at Karma Communications, has stepped down.
Freeview launches its latest series of digital ads today, which show the benefits of free services.
Jon Claydon, Rita Clifton, Karen Blackett and Sarah Warby are among the advertising, media and marketing names to make it into Debrett's list of the most influential people in the UK.
The Daily Mirror is responding to the publicity around its rival The Sun's Page 3 by publishing a "montage" of tits tomorrow.
Content agency Across The Pond has produced a series of four short digital films as part of the publicity push for the release of spy drama Kingsman: The Secret Service, featuring Colin Firth.
Lowe Open and DLKW Lowe have launched an integrated marketing push to support ongoing TV activity for the British Heart Foundation's Wear Red fundraising day, which takes place on 6 February.
Publicis Groupe has extended the deadline for Sapient shareholders to accept its $3.7 billion offer for a fourth time.
Skittles is releasing a teaser for its first-ever Super Bowl ad. The spot, created by DDB Chicago, employs the same humour as previous ads from the Wrigley brand.
Continuation of "Hyped for Halftime" campaign gets some laughs
Lingerie chain Victoria's Secret is getting in on the Super Bowl action by releasing an online film of five models playing American Football and buying a TV spot during the big game.
FCB Inferno's ad for Sport England encouraging women to participate in sport has topped this week's Campaign Viral Chart.
Rocky star Sylvester Stallone will appear in an ad for Warburtons bread, reprising his role as the aging Cold War boxer.
Series of videos explores how dads can get the work and family life balance right
The London boroughs have appointed Enter, Manning Gottlieb OMD and Carat to handle the first campaign to prevent rising HIV infection rates in London.
Carlsberg has launched a campaign to find a new pundit for TalkSport, who will be part of the commentary line-up for the final game of the Premier League season.
The gambling industry is using a catchy ditty appropriated by ad agency The Corner from a 70s hit by Ram Jam to tell its customers to stop betting when they are throwing good money after bad.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has promised to publish the result of a review of gambling ads "shortly" after concerns expressed by senior Lib Dem Danny Alexander came to light.
The Houses of Parliament are broadcasting a series of short educational videos at London Underground stations to commemorate the anniversaries of the Simon de Montfort Parliament and the sealing of Magna Carta.
Latest jobs Jobs web feed
- DTP - Presentations Operator Michael Page Digital £30000 - £35000 per annum, City of London
- Creative Experiential Producer Gemini Search £35000.00 - £45000.00 per annum, City of London
- Head of Production Creative Recruitment £60000 - £800000 per annum + bens, Berkshire
- Designer Aspire £35000.00 per annum, London
- Senior Customer Experience Designer Salt £40000 - £45000 per annum, Peterborough
- Head of Marketing Stopgap £45000 - £50000 per annum, South East England


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This year, Cupid picked a real winner.
Valentine's Day falls on a Monday, not exactly the most romantic of nights to wine and dine your amour. In fact, it's normally the slowest traffic day of the week, according to the National Restaurant Association.
But local restaurant owners remain hopeful that love will prevail. And if love isn't a sufficient motivator, maybe fear will be.
"Valentine's is like Mother's Day you have to go out or else you'll be in trouble," said Jean Francois Meteigner, chef and owner of La Cachette in West Los Angeles.
Meteigner said that based on expected dining duration times, La Cachette will serve about 250 people on Valentine's and about half those slots have been booked.
Romantic spots such as Valentino and La Boheme say they are already booked solid.
Other celebrants prefer to avoid the crowds at L.A.'s well-known romantic restaruants and explore other alternatives.
"(Valentine's) happens to be my birthday, so we don't like to go where everyone else is going," said Dana Slatkin, president of Beverly Hills Farmers Market Inc., maker of a food product line. "We like to try Thai or Indian food. It's less conventional, less crowded and more low-key. We can make our own romance at home."
Eager to step out
Although a number of popular restaurants, including Patina and Ciudad, say they don't start filling up until the first week of February, some say that inquiries began pouring in before Christmas.
"This year they started much earlier and I'm not sure why. We didn't even have our menus ready," said Joe Luby, manager of Il Cielo in Beverly Hills, which is about half booked for Valentine's. "Since a lot of people stayed home for New Year's, maybe they are anxious to really go out."
Jim Butler, a partner at the law firm of Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro LLP, agreed that he and other Angelenos are eager for a festive night out after L.A.'s ho-hum New Year's. "After the (lighting of) the Hollywood sign, I would think we'd want to tone up the excitement a bit," he said.
Butler added that he plans to treat his significant other on Sunday instead of Monday, and he's not the only one. Restaurateurs say they are seeing some spillover effect for lovers who want to celebrate on the weekend, rather than wait until Monday. A few spots, including those at the Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey and Regent Beverly Wilshire hotels, are introducing their Valentine's menu a day or two early, on the weekend.
"It actually works better for us. On Fridays and Saturday we have to turn people away anyway, so now more people can come out and make it a four-day celebration," said Jennifer Worthley, Valentino's director of catering. "Normally we're closed on Sunday, but we're open because of Valentine's. If people can't get a Monday-night reservation, they will settle for Sunday."
For Valentine purists, the only proper day to celebrate is the 14th.
"People have preconceived ideas of romance, which is why most people prefer that day to go out," said Judith Sherven, a relationship expert who co-authored "Opening to Love," released this month. "People have got to have that romantic experience on the 14th and not the 12th."
It's a tradition that civil litigation attorney Mike Erlinger plans to uphold.
"I think you want to celebrate on that day, and since this is the first Valentine's Day for my girlfriend and I, we feel a special connection to it," said Erlinger, 30, who has a table reserved at La Boheme.
For Sheryl Craig, who co-owns a public relations firm, this year's observance of love may be muted, but it will be on Monday as well.
"It seems a little less exciting, a little less special on Monday because you've worked all day and carry home work stuff on your shoulders, but it's nice to know that you'll go out to dinner," said Craig, who plans to make restaurant reservations soon for her husband and herself. "It actually makes Monday a day to look forward to, which is sometimes hard to do."
And besides the romantic elements, there may be a pragmatic advantage to celebrating on Monday: It might be less expensive. "During the week, you can do something simpler," he said. "There's an expectation to do more on the weekend."
The night might be briefer as well. "We find that people don't linger that long anyway, they don't dine for hours and hours," Meteigner said. "They go home pretty quickly."
For reprint and licensing requests for this article, CLICK HERE.


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Regent Hotels and Resorts and Rezidor Hotel Group have signed a strategic alliance agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, Rezidor will develop and operate new Regent hotels in Russia, the CIS countries, the Baltic region, the Middle East and Africa, and Rezidor and Regent will jointly develop Regent properties in the rest of Europe. The Regent brand was previously part of Carlson and Rezidor before it was acquired by Formosa International Hotels Corporation a couple of years ago. “The acquisition of the Regent brand and business by Formosa in 2010 allowed us to focus on our core brands Radisson Blu and Park Inn by Radisson, and to strengthen our network in 70 countries across EMEA,” said Kurt Ritter, Rezidor’s president and chief executive officer. “A luxury brand was however never off our agenda, and we are delighted to complement our portfolio with Regent now,” he added.
Hilton Worldwide has launched a new Waldorf Astoria hotel this week. After a £24 million renovation and refurbishment, the 254-room Caledonian Hilton Edinburgh hotel, in Scotland’s capital, has reopened as the 241-room Caledonian, A Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The hotel, which is more than 100 years old, has been operated by Hilton since 2000. It has become the group’s second Waldorf Astoria property in the UK, alongside Syon Park in London.
It’s been a busy week for Marriott International. The group announced plans to open its tenth hotel in Turkey, in the city of Izmir, on the Aegean coast. The Renaissance Izmir Hotel is due to open at the end of the year. Once open, the 110-room hotel will become Hilton’s first hotel in Izmir and its fifth Renaissance property in the country. Additionally, Marriott has signed a franchise agreement with SHEPI SNC for its first AC Hotel by Marriott property in Paris. When it opens in 2014, the 166-room AC Hotel Paris Port Maillot will be Marriott’s 14th hotel in the French capital and the third AC Hotel by Marriott in France. Marriott also revealed plans to open three new Autograph Collection properties in Europe by the end of the year. The Collection will make its debut in Portugal with the 72-room Fontecruz hotel in Lisbon, and France is to welcome two new Autograph Collection hotels: the 78-room Hotel De Bourgtheroulde in Rouen and the 72-room Hotel L’Hermitage Gantois in Lille; the buildings of both hotels, in the north of France, date back to the 15th century.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts has signed an agreement with German real estate and investment company Bari Gruppe that will see the group’s environmentally friendly, extended stay brand, Element, make its debut in Europe. The new-build Element Frankfurt Airport is expected to open in 2014 at the Gateway Gardens area in Frankfurt, Germany, with 133 studios and one-bedroom suites. “This is the beginning of what we anticipate will be a long-term relationship with Starwood as we introduce Element Hotels to Europe and establish it as the continent’s most eco and guest-friendly extended stay brand,” said Marco Bari from Bari Gruppe. Starwood currently operates Element hotels across the USA, but also has properties in the pipeline for Canada and the Middle East due to open in the next few years.
Mukul, a luxury boutique hotel and spa in Guacalito de la Isla, a new $250-million, 1,670-acre private beach community on Nicaragua’s Emerald Coast, is scheduled to open in January 2013. Mukul will feature 37 accommodations, each with an ocean view, pool and private staff. Other resort amenities include Spa Mukul, with six private spa-treatment casitas; a beach club featuring dining and lounge areas and a swimming pool; and the 18-hole Guacalito Golf Course. Mukul and Guacalito de la Isla are the vision of Nicaraguan entrepreneur Don Carlos Pellas, whose family has roots in the country that date back to the 19th century. The Pellas family businesses include transportation, computers, sugar, ethanol, Flor de Caña Rum and the Vivian Pellas Hospital. Pellas also founded the BAC Credomatic financial network in 1985.
Bulgari Hotels & Resorts has signed an agreement with OCT Group to open a new hotel in Shanghai in 2015. The project follows the opening of the Bulgari Hotel London in late May this year. The luxury goods brand has a further two properties – in Milan, which opened in 2004, and a resort in Bali, which opened in 2006. The Shanghai hotel will be located in a riverside metropolitan complex development in Suhe Creek, a protected heritage zone in the Zhabei District. The Bulgari Hotel will be located in the 12 upper floors of a 40-storey building designed by architecture team Foster + Partners. The hotel will have 120 rooms and suites – including the 400sqm Bulgari suite – as well as a ballroom, spa, and rooftop Italian restaurant. A Chinese fine dining restaurant will be created in the former Chinese Chamber of Commerce building at the site, which dates back to early 1900.
Hudson, a Morgans Hotel Group property in New York, has completed a US$18 million renovation of its 836 guestrooms. During nine months of work, crews removed the popcorn ceilings and installed new Venetian blinds. Guestrooms also have new storage options and new artwork in light boxes by Nick Veasy. The bathrooms have new illuminated bathroom mirrors. The next phase of the project will add two new food and beverage outlets and a new outdoor Private Park space.


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Phones 4u’s administrator has made 628 redundancies at its head office as Vodafone steps in to buy 140 stores and take on 887 of its employees.
The remaining 400 employees at the Phones 4U head office in Newcastle Under Lyme will be kept on in order to support administrator PwC as it seeks to sell off additional stores to other interested parties.
EE is also interested in taking on a handful of stores and is expected to hire any employees working in the stores.
Vodafone and EE have both been eyeing Phones 4u stores after the retailer fell into administration on Monday after both network operators opted not to renew their supply contracts with Phones 4u earlier this month.
Dixons Carphone has also stepped in to save 800 jobs out of the company’s 5,596 after it reached an agreement with PwC to keep on the staff that worked in Phones 4u concessions in Currys & PC World stores.
The remaining store staff have been asked to remain at home until talks are concluded.
PwC partner and joint administrator Rob Hunt said: “It is with great sadness and regret that we have today made the difficult decision to make 628 head office and telesales staff redundant.
“Our thoughts are with those employees at this difficult time. We will make every effort to help the affected staff, working with the Phones 4u HR team over the coming days to support employees.
“We wish the transferring employees all the best with their new employer and would like to thank all the Phones 4u staff for their support since our appointment as administrators.
“While this deal remains subject to the approval of the UK courts, we are confident that this represents the best available transaction for the company’s creditors.”
The deal to transfer employees across to Vodafone remains subject to the British courts approval, which is due to be determined on Monday.


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A UK court has dismissed Swedish oat drink giant Oatly’s claims of trademark infringement and passing off against British oat milk producer Glebe Farm.
The case was based on the use of the branding ‘PureOaty’ on Glebe Farm’s gluten-free oat milk.
The court hearing examined wide-ranging aspects of alleged relevant intellectual property, including choice of language and typefaces, the use of the colour blue, and the detail of a coffee cup appearing on the PureOaty pack.
The judge ruled out any likelihood of confusion between the PureOaty name and look of the carton, and any of the Oatly trademarks.
Further, the judge ruled against Oatly’s allegation that Glebe Farm intended to gain some unfair advantage, and having reviewed all the evidence and contemporaneous documents, was fully satisfied that there was no intention as attributed by Oatly.
'We Have Done Nothing Wrong'
Phillip Rayner, owner and managing director of Glebe Farm, said, “We have had the threat of this court case - which has pitched our challenger brand against Oatly’s multinational business - looming over us for more than a year.
“We have always felt certain that we have done nothing wrong, and we were determined to fight Oatly’s claims that our brands were similar - something that is now proven to be wrong. You only need to look at the two products and packaging side by side to appreciate how different these brands are, and how unnecessary this legal action was.”
Rayner also added that the company appreciates the huge support that PureOaty and Glebe Farm received from around the world, including 130,000 signatures on a change.org petition related to the matter.
He also emphasised that Glebe Farm never intended to be “an Oatly clone” and took pride in its product.
“It is enormously gratifying that the judge has ruled in our favour, and to see that smaller independent companies can fight back and win,” he said.
In May of this year, Oatly Group AB, which counts celebrities Oprah Winfrey and Natalie Portman among its backers, raised $1.4 billion in its US initial public offering.


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Today is the Day! Wake up get prepared, before you walk out the door double-check keys, phone, wallet, ID CARD! They won’t let you on base without it, you’re part of the Area 51 Team! With 7 distinct teams and units like Shadow, Rescue, Storm, and Invasion where will you be the day of the raid?
Google may be looking to combat its Google Glass aesthetics problems if newly filed patents have anything to say about it. While Google Glass found a niche following in tech lovers, the wearable gadget hasn't yet gained a huge backing. One problem could be the space-age, some-what awkward look of the device. Patent images recently filed by Google show a much more natural looking pair of specs, with the screen tucked behind the frames. The display could possibly cover the entire lens.
Technology has made leaps and bounds over the past few decades, but there's just something about the games from our childhood that will always hold a special place in our heart; and app creaters know it! Now, you can downloads apps on your smartphone and tablet for some of the best games of your past. Ironically, these apps, installed on some of the most advanced devices on the market, use the same cheesy sound effects and simple graphics as the original arcade games, keeping them exactly the way you loved them as a kid! So what better for a throwback Thursday then to take a look at some of the games we spe...


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The primary iPhone with a folding display screen could have an 8-inch panel with QHD + decision.
Apple is at present engaged on the event of an iPhone cell phone with an eight-inch versatile display screen that will attain the market in 2023, in response to the analyst specializing in Apple Ming-Chi Kuo has revealed.
The primary iPhone with a folding display screen could have an 8-inch panel with QHD + decision that may be folded due to the usage of a versatile OLED glass materials, as Kuo sources and MacRumors say.
The versatile panel will likely be manufactured by Samsung Show (SDC), the South Korean unit specialised in shows, and Samsung can even be liable for offering the display screen ‘drivers’.
Likewise, it’s anticipated that the terminal will make use of the expertise of silver nanowires beneath the display screen, which will likely be carried out by TPK and which is able to permit contact management utilizing not just one hinge however a number of.
The gadget is anticipated to hit the market in 2023 and a complete of 15-20 million items of the primary foldable iPhone mannequin will likely be produced.


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In 1977, when Mollie Katzen received a call from Doubleday expressing interest in acquiring her self-published vegetarian cookbook, the author jumped at the opportunity.
It had been three years since Katzen, founder of the hippyish Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, N.Y., first recorded the restaurant’s popular recipes in a spiral notebook. The aim was to standardize them for the kitchen staff, and also to offer eager patrons a chance to try cooking at home some of Moosewood’s then-exotic fare—like hummus, and moussaka.
It wasn’t long before word about the oddball meatless recipe collection, The Moosewood Cookbook, spread. By the time Doubleday contacted Katzen, she had already sold 5,000 copies on her own, and was finding the task of distributing the $4 book increasingly onerous.
Then Doubleday offered Katzen a $2,000 advance, which felt like “a ticket out of hippiedom.” But before signing with the New York house, Katzen received another inquiry about the book, this time from Phil Wood, the now-legendary founder of the then-fledgling Berkeley, Calif-based Ten Speed Press.
Wood wanted to publish Moosewood very badly—so badly in fact that he doubled Doubleday’s advance and granted Katzen complete editorial control.
Katzen accepted, and a 37-year-long collaboration with the publisher was born. Katzen produced seven cookbooks for Ten Speed, including Still Life With Menu (1994), The New Enchanted Broccoli Forest (2000), and a reissue of Moosewood with lightened-up versions of its original dairy-rich recipes. “I’ve never gotten over how wonderful it was to have [Moosewood] happen at the very beginning of Ten Speed,” she says.
To honor the 40th anniversary of Moosewood’s original, self-published release in 1974, Ten Speed, now part of Random House, has reissued the cookbook, spiffing it up with a hardcover binding, but otherwise leaving Katzen’s original handwritten recipes and illustrations, untouched.
“With the resurgence of interest in vegetarian cooking, it felt like the right time to reintroduce Moosewood and call attention to its iconic status,” said Aaron Wehner, senior v-p and publisher at Clarkson Potter, Ten Speed Press & Harmony Books, who became Ten Speed’s publisher in 2008, two years before founder Woods died. “Moosewood was the book that legitimized a whole toolkit of vegetable cooking, not just as a side dish, but as the main attraction.”
For Ten Speed, the publication of Moosewood was a seminal moment in its history. It took a few years for the cookbook to catch on. But now, the company sells about 20,000 a year, totaling three million copies in print. Moosewood is one of the top ten bestselling cookbooks of all time, according to the New York Times, and has been inducted into the James Beard Foundation's Cookbook Hall of Fame. “It was the foundational book in the [Ten Speed] cookbook program,” Wehner said.
As for Katzen, she expresses some discomfort with her status as vegetarian visionary. For one, she occasionally eats meat. She also believes she gets too much credit, and other less well-known meatless cookbook pioneers, like Anna Thomas author of The Vegetarian Epicure (Vintage, 1972), get too little for their contributions to the vegetarian movement.
So why is she so renowned, and they less so? “I was at the right place at the right time,” said Katzen.


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The proposed changes, they say, would make it easier for IT to provision, manage and secure Bonjour-enabled networking of Apple products. But the changes also would make more Apple’s networking more useable for iPad and iPhone owners. On campus, or at the office, they want the same kind ease of access and use they have at home. They want to connect easily over enterprise networks with resources such as printers running Apple’s AirPrint protocol, or use Apple’s AirPlay wireless multimedia streaming, and to marry iOS devices with flat-panel displays or high-def speakers via Apple TV, or with projectors. And today, they often can’t do that because of how enterprise networks are designed.
Not everyone agrees about what should be changed. And some network professionals argue that the petition, in effect, asks Apple to scrap Bonjour and craft an entirely new and more complex discovery mechanism, which few seem to think is likely.
The petition drive began earlier this month, at the WLAN listserv group at Educause, a non-profit group that focuses on higher education IT. A draft of the final text, completed over the past weekend is available on a Facebook group. But dissatisfaction with Bonjour and AirPlay has been simmering for a long time.
Apple had not yet responded to a request for comment as this story was posted.
Bonjour, originally called Rendezvous when introduced in the early 2000’s, is Apple’s latest implementation of “zero configuration networking” or Zeroconf, which is a group of open protocols to automatically and quickly set up an IP network, without having to set up services such as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol or DNS. More background is online, at a page maintained by Stuart Cheshire, Zeroconf’s pioneer who was later hired by Apple.
Zeroconf and its Bonjour iteration are intended to let computers attach to a network, find each other and communicate usefully “without needing a man in a white lab coat to set it all up for you,” as Cheshire says. He identifies four main requirements for Zeroconf, and the services used to meet these requirements in implementations like Bonjour:
+ Allocate addresses without a DHCP server, using IPv4 Link-Local Addressing.
+ Translate between names and IP addresses without a DNS server, using Multicast DNS.
+ Find services, like printers, without a directory server, using DNS Service Discovery.
+ Allocate IP Multicast addresses without a MADCAP (Multicast Address Dynamic Client Allocation Protocol) server, a future project.
And it needs to do all this without causing harm when the computers are part of larger, configured networks.
Bonjour is what gives Apple products their plug and play networking capabilities – they just network when they’re connected to the same LAN. AirPlay builds on this, by letting iOS devices and Macs stream multimedia files, or selected Web-based content, via an Apple TV box to AirPlay enabled speakers or flatpanel displays, all with just a few finger taps or mouse clicks. It’s very compelling in the small Wi-Fi networks typically found at home, for example. But it’s not so compelling today on larger, more complex networks, at least as they are designed today.
The explosion of iOS devices on campuses, and in businesses, along with Apple TV and AirPlay, is generating a huge demand by users. They want the same kind of simple connectivity they get at home but in their class rooms, conference rooms, and dormitories.
“[T]oday’s users also want to drag the likes of Apple TV and other AirPlay/Bonjour-enabled toys into the classroom and conference room,” writes Lee Badman, wireless technical lead at Syracuse University, an Educause member. He’s also a blogger for Network Computing, where he recently posted an overview of the Bonjour issues driving the petition. “Indeed, Apple promotes it: ‘AirPlay Mirroring is made for an audience. Because with a click, what’s on your Mac is also on your HDTV. It’s easy to set up with Apple TV. Show web pages and videos to friends on the couch, share lessons with a classroom, or present to a conference room.’ The problem is, these Apple devices are far from being good network citizens.”
“With growing user demands, higher education network managers are attempting to unify their voices and ask for Apple to step up to the plate,” Badman writes. “Kludgy workarounds and dedicated networks for a handful of devices are not sustainable solutions.”
Among the key problems, according to the petitioners:
+ Apple’s AirPlay wireless content streaming doesn’t work when Apple clients and Apple TVs are on different IP subnets, which is a feature of most enterprise networks.
+ Bonjour technologies “do not work in a scalable, sustainable fashion between different IP subnets,” and workarounds such as Wide-Area Bonjour (DNS-SD) and Dynamic DNS have scaling and security problems.
+ Many education institutions routinely disable IP multicast, an essential part of Bonjour.
+ Apple TV doesn’t support WPA2-Enterprise authentication and encryption, and its single-password security is hackable.
For some of these problems, there are workarounds, but they entail redesigning networks, creating dedicated networks for Bonjour/AirPlay connections, and the like. Some commercial products are appearing from WLAN vendors to address Bonjour shortcomings. Aerohive announced in March its Bonjour Gateway, which makes advertised services available throughout an entire layer-3 network. Aruba’s AirGroup feature, also announced in March and due to be released later this year, lets the WLAN controller listen for Bonjour’s multicast DNS messages, identify the users and their access privileges, and direct the request to a nearby Apple AirPrint printer, for example.
Yet not everyone agrees with the petitioners’ assessment of Bonjour. The protocol is very well designed for what it is in fact designed to do, says Benjamin Levy, principal with Solutions Consulting, a Los Angeles technology services firm that specializes in enterprise Apple deployments. The problems identified by the petitioners “identify the specific strengths of, and reasons for, Bonjour as weaknesses,” he says. “It wasn’t designed to cross subnets, and its method of discovery uses multicast and multicast DNS, so, umm, huh? Remember that Bonjour is really ZeroConf and Zeroconf is open. It’s not just Apple devices.”
“Bonjour was intended as a lightweight resource discovery mechanism for a local area network without needing to set up a directory service,” agrees William Green, director networking and telecommunications, at University of Texas at Austin. And that’s the point, he adds. “Enterprises consist of many local area networks – we have over 3,500 – so those discovery mechanisms do not work well, or at all, depending on routing,” he says.
Levy notes that Apple TV’s lack of WPA2-Enterprise support isn’t related to Bonjour and AirPlay and can be fixed by Apple updating the device’s firmware. “In that event, what they’re really making is a feature request, and Apple pays attention to those,” Levy says. “I think Apple would pay very real attention to feature requests that move more Apple TVs into boardrooms and classrooms as viable replacements for projectors and so on.”
UT’s Green again agrees. But the lack of WPA2-Enterprise support is one more missing piece in Apple’s whole enterprise networking puzzle. “The lack of support is a problem for enterprises that track people individually via WPA2-Enterprise,” Green says. “Some schools go as far as to drop them on different networks and provide them different services based on their login ID. We do not do that at my institution, but we do account for their actions and quarantine that way.”
Education IT groups clearly are tired of having to constantly and awkwardly work around Bonjour.
Abilene Christian University, which began widespread deployment of iPhones and iPod touch devices starting in late 2007, set up separate SSIDs and VLANs for Bonjour services, says Arthur Brant, ACU’s director of networking service. Originally just for faculty, the professors had to manually connect each Bonjour device to the correct SSID, via a captive portal provided by the WLAN controller. Apple TV adds to the complexity.
“We did have to manually set up the Apple TVs within the captive portal registry so that they could connect – and stay connected – to this dedicated SSID,” Brant says. “This was an acceptable process when we had half a dozen Apple TVs, but not something that scales to hundreds of Apple TVs. This solution was, again, ‘functional.’ but the faculty/staff limitation proved to be the next hurdle we had to cross.”
Then students wanted to use Apple’s AirPlay mirroring to show their iPhone 4S or iPad screen on a flat-panel display through Apple TV. ACU has to set up yet another dedicated SSID, which authenticates users against ACU’s network access control (NAC).
Universities and colleges are also finding that hundreds or thousands of Bonjour-enabled devices are constantly using the multicast protocol to find each other. The result is an astonishing amount of discovery traffic. Aruba Networks says that some of its higher education WLAN customers have found that Bonjour can account for 90% of the WLAN traffic at some times. Mathew Gast, Aerohive Networks director of product management, counted 400 Bonjour services available when visiting one customer.
“Now, having 400-plus services on a single VLAN isn’t a problem,” he wrote in a blog post. “After all, that network was running fine. It’s having 400 services on the first VLAN, another 400-odd services on the second VLAN, and so on. If you blindly share everything, you will give an appropriate meaning to the word ‘flood’ as your network drowns in multicast.”
The University of Washington had to disable multicast in a few areas due to excessive multicast/broadcast traffic, says David Morton, UW’s director of mobile communications. “This breaks Bonjour so we try to limit the areas where we have to implement these measures.”
Breaking Bonjour is a problem. “From a user’s perspective, it is difficult to understand why it works at home, but not on our network,” Morton says. “We’ve had several discussions with Apple about this issue and would love to see them offer a solution.”
“Even if you could get multicast to work on a large scale, would you really want to be presented with a list of 500 Apple TVs, presuming the software could even handle that, or 1,000 printers?” asks William Green, at the University of Texas, which disabled multicast. “And would you want just anyone to be able to connect to all those Apple TVs? Suppose someone projected something inappropriate: How would you find out who did it to educate them on proper use of the resource?”
The alternatives are awkward, he says: cabling iPads directly to classroom Apple TV boxes, and with multiple groups, cabling through a complex and expensive switching system; or setting up separate Wi-Fi access points that aren’t part of the campus WLAN. “This creates support problems and authentication difficulties, usually limiting it to instructor-use only,” Green says.
These IT managers are not optimistic that Apple will decide to make their jobs easier.
“Whether or not Apple will make such a change, I honestly don’t know,” says ACU’s Brant. “In your typical home or consumer network scenario, Bonjour works great….I personally believe that the target segment for the Apple TV is the consumer space, and so I really don’t see Apple changing course with their Bonjour service, because it meets the needs of the consumer market.”


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Studies like these usually generate headlines like "Robots are putting people out to pasture" (the Mail), "After the robot revolution, these may be the only jobs left for human beings" (The Telegraph), and "Robots will steal your job" (er, Business Insider).
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
That's because they're likely to create a lot of new, more interesting jobs than the ones they're destroying. Chris Dixon, of the Silicon Valley VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, recently published this chart which showed all the typographer jobs that were "destroyed" by publishing software:
If you like designing pages, then you want to be alive now — plenty of jobs! — and not in 1984.
Here is an even better one. It shows how the film camera industry was destroyed by the digital camera industry, which was in turn destroyed by the smartphone industry. These data are of sales revenues, not jobs, but it's obvious that there are more people employed today making phones than there ever were making cameras:
So rejoice. The robots are coming! And they have lots of jobs for us.


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2008 was a hard year on everyone, especially those in luxury industries like fashion designer Betsey Johnson. At the top of her game and beloved by fans, even that rising star was cut down in her prime by the massive recession that followed. The time has come again, however, for this fashion sensation to rise once more to the top starting with building up her base in New Orleans.
Betsey Johnson is adorable. The flamboyant fashion queen appeared at Dillardís in Lakeside mall Saturday (June 22), to the delight of hundreds of fans that packed the ground floor of the department store. Johnson has made a 35-year career of creating happily hectic clothing and accessory designs that run 180 degrees counter to the notion of a conservative working womanís wardrobe.
Fortunes were unkind to Johnson in 2012, when she was reportedly forced to declare bankruptcy in the wake of the nationwide economic belly flop. Her former fashion empire may have come apart at the seams, but sheís quickly stitched together a comeback and, judging by the crowd at Dillardís, her fans are eager to help her re-attain former glory. (Read More)


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CHESNUT HILL TOWNSHIP, MONROE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — Pennsylvania State Police issue a public warning on phone scams as another victim loses money in Monroe County.
PSP says on Thursday, November 16, troopers responded to Sugar Hollow Road in Chestnut Hill Township for a reported theft.
Troopers say the victim received a voicemail stating they won a prize from the Publishers Clearing House (PCH) and they needed a $500 debit card to pay for the processing of the prize.
According to police the victim acquired a $500 gift card and gave the unknown caller the numbers of the card to receive their gift from PCH.
PSP says after speaking with the unknown caller, the victim then contacted PCH and was told they would never request money from a prize winner.
State police say they are warning the public to be on the lookout for phone scams as they are on the rise and to also remember no legitimate company will ask for money over the phone.


text:
Research in Motion has confirmed claims that a number of 16GB BlackBerry PlayBook tablets are faulty and must be recalled. An RIM insider told Engadget that nearly a thousand of the dodgy tablets were shipped to Staples last week, and that the US retailer was taking steps to recall purchased units. RIM PlayBook RIM has since …
What an utterly daft name. There is no way at all this product will catch on in the UK.
What is limited?
...the Playbook, the recall or both?
Should have called is a PlayPad or a GiMMICKpad
- World's OLDEST human DNA found in leg bone – but that's not the only boning going on...
- Lightning strikes USB bosses: Next-gen jacks will be REVERSIBLE
- OHM MY GOD! Move over graphene, here comes '100% PERFECT' stanene
- Pics Brit inventors' GRAVITY POWERED LIGHT ships out after just 1 year
- Beijing leans on Microsoft to maintain Windows XP support


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Uniqlo parent, Japan’s Fast Retailing has launched a new company to focus on the development of in-store technology.
Wearex Co, launched this week, will operate as a joint venture with Accenture Japan. The new company will be headed by Fast Retailing group officer and CIO Hajime Tamaoki and will be headquartered at Fast Retailing’s Tokyo head office, in Tokyo Midtown, Roppongi.
“With the launch, Fast Retailing plans to build its mobile and cloud technology capacity, to advance the digitisation of its business and merge the in-store and virtual store experience for customers of its group brands,” the company said in a statement.
“The new initiative aims to allow them to access and purchase products anywhere, anytime to realise an all new shopping experience.”
Wearex also aims to actively hire and nurture the development of talented IT engineers, to advance digital innovation for consumers.
The new company will initially launch with about 50 staff, focused on Japan and with a vision to expand worldwide.


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Samsung & LG ‘Pursuing Business with Big International Crypto Players’
South Korean experts say that domestic business big-hitters like Samsung and LG are stepping up their crypto-related activities with overseas companies – rather than domestic players – as part of a strategy that has begun to take shape in the past few weeks.
As previously reported, Samsung last week struck a deal with American crypto exchange player Gemini. The deal saw Samsung integrated Gemini exchange functions for its flagship Galaxy smartphones equipped with Blockchain Wallet features in both the United States and Canada – allowing users to buy and sell crypto, and make use of Gemini Custody cold wallet storage functions.
LG, meanwhile, has recently become a member of the governance council of the Dallas-based Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) project, also agreeing to run a node on the latter’s network.
The COVID-19 outbreak has forced many companies to explore contact-free technological solutions and business models – and bigger South Korean companies see cryptocurrencies as being a key part of this.
The media outlet quotes an unnamed industry insider as stating that big companies like LG and Samsung are keen to tap into the potential of crypto, but would prefer to partner with strong and high-potential players in the United States, where they feel the market is already in an advanced state.
Regulatory issues are a third factor, per the report.
The media outlet quotes another unnamed South Korean industry chief as stating,
“Due to regulatory uncertainty and the government’s reluctance to cooperate, large domestic companies are choosing not to pursue cooperation with domestic [crypto] companies.”
The same insider stated that although the National Assembly’s passed a potentially groundbreaking crypto-specific legal amendment in March this year, big South Korean firms are not convinced.
The industry chief stated that South Korean crypto regulation was “still inferior” to the regulatory frameworks in countries such as Japan and the United States.
One crypto-keen domestic player that both Samsung and LG do have strong relationships with is tech giant Kakao.
The latter yesterday launched a crypto wallet that is integrated with its 50+ million-user KakaoTalk app. LG and its subsidiaries are governance council members of Kakao’s Klaytn blockchain project, while Samsung’s smartphone blockchain wallet is also compatible with Klaytn’s native Klay token.


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D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray announced Thursday that he would veto a city council bill that would have singled out the retail giant Walmart and forced it to pay a minimum $12.50 hourly wage, far above the district's $8.25 minimum hourly wage for other businesses.
In a letter to the council, Gray said the law would be a "job killer" for the city that would eliminate more than 4,000 positions in the first years of its enactment.
"I feel compelled to veto this bill ... because it will not improve employment opportunities or wages for the vast majority of our workforce. To the contrary, it will result in significant harm to the residents and areas of the District most in need of jobs, economic development, and new amenities," Gray wrote.
At the same time, the mayor said that he would be open to raising the city's minimum wage across the board and indicated the city council should put that on its agenda.
The city council passed the law -- called the Large Retailer Accountability Act of 2013 -- in July. The council had initially welcomed Walmart's plans to bring six stores in the city only to make a sharp about face after heavy lobbying by Big Labor and other activist groups opposed to the nonunion retail giant.
The bill was specifically written to affect only large retail chains such as Walmart and, as Gray noted, exempted the ones that are already union-organized. Walmart reacted by suspending construction on three store sites and vowing to cancel plans for the rest if the bill passed.
The council ignored the threat. “We’re at a point where we don’t need retailers. Retailers need us,” said Vincent Orange, a Democratic at-large councilman and the bill’s leading advocate at the time.
That left the matter up to Gray. In his letter he denied he had been pressured by Walmart and said that the "vast majority of District residents" had urged him to veto the measure.
Organized labor has been fighting a running battle with the non-union retailer for years and has recently stepped up its activities. Promoting so-called "living wage" laws like the District's has been one of its tactics.
The laws essentially force businesses to pay the kind of wages they would have to if their workers were unionized. This creates a “well, what’s the difference?” situation for the businesses when unions try to organize their workers.
Despite the veto, Walmart critics will likely consider this a partial win given that Gray has urged the council to raise the minimum wage overall, which is one of the goals of the living wage movement.


text: Earlier this week, news broke that Samsung would offer South Korean customers who purchased a Note7 an exchange option that includes the ability to swap their Notes for a choice of another Samsung device, at a discount. That's nothing new; similar options are available in United States and other countries.\n\n\nWhat's different about the South Korean offer is the fact that in addition to being able to swap phones for a Galaxy S7 or GS7 edge, Note7 owners in that country can reportedly also opt for a discounted "Note 8" smartphone, when it becomes available, according to Reuters.com.\n\n\nFrom Reuters:\u00a0\n\n\n\n"In a statement on Monday, Samsung said customers who trade in their Note 7 phone for either a flat-screen or curved-screen version of the Galaxy S7 can trade up for a Galaxy S8 or Note 8 smartphone launching next year through an upgrade program."\n\n\n\nA good amount of speculation has made its way around the web following the many turning points on Samsung's ill-fated Note7 timeline regarding the possibility of the company\u00a0killing off it popular "phablet" brand, or at least rebranding the Note. Samsung's statement to Reuters appears to fly in the face of those rumors, but a company spokesperson gave me some less convincing information:\n\n\n\n"As for the reports on the exchange program in Korea, that offering refers to the availability of S8 in that market and is regionally specific. Samsung has not officially communicated any information about a new Note lineup, so any reports referring to a new Note device are purely speculation and are not in reference to any communications from Samsung on a future Note."\n\n\n\nSamsung should release a Note 8 \u2026 but will it?\n\nDespite Samsung's non-committal response, other industry insiders and technology leaders believe Samsung will indeed release a new Note phone. "I don't see them dropping the Note brand," says Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. "I think come January or March \u2014 January at CES or March at Mobile World Congress \u2014 they'll come out with a Note 8. It will look different, it may be a different color, they might put a different industrial type of coating on it. But it will be their high-end phone that not only goes after high-end consumers but enterprise as well."\u00a0\n\n\nSamsung is no newcomer to the world of mobile devices, and it's made countless successful smartphones. "Samsung's made a lot of phones, for quite some time, years and years," says Tuong Nguyen, a principle research analyst with Gartner. "This seems like a bit of a blip on the radar.\u00a0\n\n\n[Related: CIOs discuss whether Note7 recall hurts Samsung's enterprise appeal]\n\n\nSamsung would do itself an injustice if it killed off the Note family, the line that literally created the whole modern phablet craze. Both Samsung's overarching image and its Note brand are taking a very real hit due to the recall, but the Note7 was the sixth iteration of a very successful and innovative mobile device. Shuttering or rebranding the Note product line could reverse much of the ground Samsung has gained in consumer hearts and minds. For years, the narrative in the mobile world was, "Samsung copies the iPhone!" The Note flipped that story around, and with the iPhone 6 Plus, Apple started copying Samsung. \u00a0\u00a0\n\n\nSamsung needs to atone for the bungled release of the Note7 and its subsequent mishandling of the whole situation. But killing the Note line would eliminate the best way to make people forget the Note7: Blow them away with a best-in-class Note 8 that, of course, does not spontaneously combust.\n\n\nAS\n\n Thinkstock \n\nClick image to enlarge and see source links.


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Campbell's Cuts Ingredients From Its Chicken Noodle Soup
Campbell’s soup is changing the ingredients in its chicken noodle soup. The new version contains 20 ingredients, compared to 30 in the previous version.
For a homemade alternative, try these recipes from Here & Now’s resident chef Kathy Gunst:
- Chicken-Vegetable Soup
- Greek-Style Chicken-Lemon-Orzo Soup With Meyer Lemon And Dill
- Homemade Chicken Stock
What’s In The New Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup
Enriched pasta (wheat flour, egg whites, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid)
Modified food starch
Dehydrated mechanically separated chicken
Dehydrated chicken broth
Beta carotene for color
Soy protein isolate
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Avis seeks to boost its growth potential by purchasing Zipcar for $491.2 million. By doing so, Avis broadens its offerings from conventional car rentals to car sharing services. Many people have started to patronize car sharing instead of the usual rentals in metropolitan areas and on college campuses. The advantage is that members can promptly obtain a vehicle for quick trips.
Zipcar was founded in 2000 and it went public in 2011. It currently has over 760,000 members. Avis Chairman and CEO Ronald Nelson said that by acquiring Zipcar, the company gives its growth potential a huge boost in the U.S. as well as in other countries. He also said that the company will be better positioned to offer various consumer and commercial transportation requirements.
Avis said that by bringing together the two fleets, the high demand on weekends will be met. For each Zipcar share, Avis Budget Group Inc. will pay $12.25. This represents a 49% premium over Zipcar’s closing price on Friday. FactSet said that the companies placed the total value of the deal at around $500 million. Zipcar Inc. has about 40.1 million outstanding shares. It will serve as an Avis subsidiary and will be based in Boston.
Its shares increased by over 47% in premarket trading Monday. The buyout was approved by the boards of the two companies. Avis expects annual savings of $50 million to $70 million. Avis, which is headquartered in Parsippany, N.J., anticipates that acquiring Zipcar will add to its adjusted earnings per share in the second year after it is complete. Avis also said that for its daily operations, certain Zipcar top officials, such as Chairman and CEO Scott Griffith and President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Norman, will still be around.


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In the second quarter of this year, the number of new subscribers of Netflix, an online video service (OTT) platform in the US, decreased by 970,000. This is less than half of the forecast of 2 million. This means that customer churn was not as great as initially feared. For the first time this year, Netflix shares rose on the day of its earnings release.
1. Netflix [NFLX]
Netflix finished trading at $201.63, up 5.61% ($10.71) on the Nasdaq, which ended on the 20th. After closing the main chapter, the aftermarket, which announced the results of the second quarter of this year, increased the rate of increase. As of 7:20 a.m., it is trading at $215.92, up 13.09% ($25).
The number of new subscribers is as important as sales or profits in the quarterly performance of OTT companies. On the same day that Netflix released its second quarter earnings, the number of new subscribers decreased to 970,000. When it announced its first quarter results in April, the 2nd quarter new subscribers were expected to decrease by 2 million.
Reuters reported that it “avoided the worst-case scenario Netflix had predicted.” Netflix confirmed customer churn every time during the previous two ‘earnings seasons’ this year and pulled down its stock price. The stock price plummeted by 20% each time it reported earnings. In particular, in the first quarter of this year, released in April, the number of new subscribers decreased for the first time in 11 years since 2011.
Netflix now expects customer churn to turn into influx. Netflix announced on the same day that the number of new subscribers in the third quarter was 1 million. However, it fell short of the Wall Street forecast of 1.84 million, compiled by Refinitiv, a US financial information company.
2. IBM [IBM]
US computer company IBM closed at $130.88, down 5.25% ($7.25) on the New York Stock Exchange on the same day. Even after announcing better-than-expected earnings on Wall Street, foreign exchange losses due to the strengthening dollar were confirmed, pulling the stock price down.
Ahead of the opening of its headquarters on the same day, IBM announced its second quarter results this year, with sales of $15.54 billion and adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $2.31, respectively. In Wall Street projections, revenue was $15.18 billion and EPS was $0.03. The published results exceeded expectations.
The problem lies in the strength of the dollar. IBM announced that it suffered a foreign exchange loss of $900 million in Q2 revenue. The loss was due to the appreciation of the dollar due to high overseas sales. IBM expects foreign exchange losses to reach $3.5 billion this year.
3. Coinbase Global [COIN]
Coinbase Global, an American cryptocurrency (virtual currency) exchange, finished trading at $65.83, up 12.2% ($7.16) on the Nasdaq on the same day. The biggest influence on Coinbase’s share price is the price of Bitcoin. As of 7:20 am, Bitcoin is trading at $23,460, up 8.51% from 24 hours ago on CoinMarketCap, a US virtual currency market capitalization information site.


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Leading companies in the smartphone biometrics industry are hard at work trying to bring fingerprint sensors into the glass displays of mobile devices.
As Synaptics’ Anthony Gioeli suggests in a post on the company’s blog, the effort is largely driven by a desire to extend the reach of the display across the front of a smartphone. Currently, most phones’ screens are limited somewhat by the presence of a home button, which generally features an embedded fingerprint scanner, and a camera. While there isn’t currently an obvious way around the camera issue, some companies have eliminated the home button commonly at the bottom end of a phone’s bezel by placing it on the device’s backside. The problem there, according to Gioeli, is that it can hurt the user experience – he writes that “some China OEM studies revealed that such designs were deemed too awkward and even difficult to use”.
That’s why it’s so important to develop a sensor that can be embedded under glass and into a device’s display. LG Innotek took a significant step in this direction earlier this year when it announced its first under-glass fingerprint sensor module. Apple, meanwhile, has demonstrated its exploration of this area with patent filings, the most recent of which describing a system of embedding its Touch ID fingerprint scanning system into the iPhone’s display, and using ‘electrostatic lenses’ to magnify the user’s fingerprint.
While these are all just first steps, they point the way toward in-display fingerprint scanning, with major OEMs so fixated on the idea that it seems almost inevitable it will be realized. In fact, industry-leading sensor supplier Fingerprint Cards today announced its own under-glass sensor, which has already been integrated into a new Hauwei smartphone, the Mate 9 Porche Design.
November 3, 2016 – by Alex Perala


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“This technology is going to revolutionize the way we live, learn, work, and play.”
Palmer Luckey’s rhetoric is evangelical, persuasive, and also somehow familiar. His ardent belief that virtual reality headsets are set to alter humanity’s technological horizons is reminiscent of the 1990s, when the film Lawnmower Man painted in somewhat crude pixels a vision of the future in which virtual reality (VR) dominated life. The vision quickly disappeared, not only from our movie screens but also from our cultural understanding of where technology might be taking us. Although for a few short moments our world seemed poised to retreat into the dark realms of possibility inside a helmet lined with tiny screens, soon enough that came to be seen as little more than the stuff of science fiction, like flying cars and ubiquitous jetpacks.
But this time, according to Luckey, designer of the forthcoming virtual reality headset Oculus Rift, we’re ready. The 20-year-old, who gathered the world’s largest collection of head-mounted displays (HMDs) when he worked as an HMD designer at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies, speaks in an endless stream of quotable sound bites. Here’s one: “This is not just a new medium—in many ways, it is the ultimate medium.” And another: “It is only a matter of time until VR becomes ubiquitous.”
Luckey’s belief in his product is infectious—so infectious, in fact, that in the 36 hours after a demonstration of the Oculus Rift prototype at the E3 video game conference in June 2012, his company raised more than $1 million in Kickstarter funding, four times as much as was asked for. When the campaign closed, the total was nearly $2.5 million. He’s gone on to convince the suspicious tech mavens of Silicon Valley too, raising $16 million in Series A funding in recent months. The world, it appears, may at last be ready for VR.
Perhaps it’s a question of managing expectations. Arguably where the original VR dream faltered was in failing to live up to the anticipation of its users. We expected to be transported through the helmet into a new dimension, full of restless color and life, but the virtual reality we experienced fell some way short. Even in its current non-HD version, Oculus Rift seems to deliver. Veteran video game developer Cliff Bleszinski was so impressed with the hardware that he became an investor shortly after playing. Meanwhile, a YouTube video of an astonished 90-year-old grandmother using the kit has garnered more than two million views.
Luckey, who was yet to be born when W Industries launched the first mass-market HMDs designed for video games in 1991, designed the Oculus Rift prototype “as a one-man team in my garage.” At the time, he had some experience working on VR projects at ICT’s mixed reality lab but was pursuing a degree in journalism. The results of his early tests were so positive that he quit the course to concentrate full time on the project.
Luckey was obsessed with VR as a child. “I grew up with influences such as Snow Crash, Lawnmower Man, and The Matrix,” he says. “Growing up with those influences, I had always dreamed of being able to play video games using VR technology.” Initially, Luckey assumed that there was a VR headset somewhere in the world that could do what he wanted. “Searching for the headset became an obsession,” he says. “As I purchased more and more HMDs, it became clear that VR was in a sorry state as far as consumer products were concerned. Even in the professional market, where headsets cost many tens of thousands of dollars, they weren’t even close to the performance I wanted. So I started tinkering in my garage, hoping that I could make something better. Initially, it was purely for myself.”
Luckey’s goal with those early designs was to create an HMD with as little lag between head movement and video image as possible, and a wide field of view. “I wanted something that made it feel like you were inside of the game, not just looking at a screen strapped to your head,” he says.
At E3 2012 he loaned his sixth prototype, now dubbed the Rift, to John Carmack, the American video game programmer whose innovations in 3-D graphics set the landscape of contemporary video games. Carmack showed the technology to the press running an updated demo of his game Doom 3, which he had modified to work with the new hardware. The response was, to use Luckey’s word, “massive.” What he had presumed would be of niche interest to virtual reality enthusiasts turned out to have broad appeal. “The virtual reality community was tiny at the time,” he says. “It was a happy surprise to see that so many ‘normal’ gamers were interested in it too.”
Within a month of E3, Luckey’s prototype had become a business. Video game industry veterans Brendan Iribe, Michael Antonov, and Nate Mitchell joined Oculus VR as CEO, lead software architect, and vice president of product respectively, and an initial development kit production run was planned in China.
What could make the product so compelling is the combination of price and performance. At $300 for a developer kit, studios used to spending thousands of dollars on video game development hardware are likely to see it as a relatively small gamble for a piece of technology that could have a big impact on the tech landscape. (Indeed, when development kits were put up for sale on the Oculus website in September of last year, they sold at a rate of four to five per minute.)
But Luckey concedes that the product’s gestation has not been without problems. “Taking something from the lab and turning it into a real product is difficult, especially for a VR headset,” he says. “With some technologies, a single advance is enough to build a product on. VR requires many complex technologies to work together flawlessly, and if you don’t get it right, everything falls apart and the immersion is lost.” It’s this particular challenge more than any other that has held the Oculus team back from announcing a firm release date.
There are also the potential side effects for users. Minecraft creator Markus Persson (see “Innovators Under 35: Markus Persson”) wrote earlier this year: “Oculus Rift integration is extremely easy. The only problem is nausea.”
Indeed, disorientation and dizziness are common complaints among new users. “The device itself is not always the root cause,” says Luckey. “Even if the hardware perfectly replicates how humans view reality, there will always be situations that make users feel poorly.” Problems particularly arise in experiences where there is a mismatch between what players see on screen and what they feel in the inner ear, where the sense of balance is controlled. “VR does not change the fact that a roller coaster or fighter jet ride are liable to make some people feel ill,” he says. “But one positive thing our user testing shows is that even people who suffer side effects tend to acclimate themselves over time; people who use the Rift on a regular basis are much less likely to have problems.”
Newbies’ problems aside, the results, if everything continues on its current trajectory, could prove transformative. “What’s surprised me is that it’s not just people interested in technology and video games that are excited,” he says. “The Rift is being used for all manner of non-gaming applications like telepresence, architecture, CAD, emergency response training, phobia therapy, and many more.”
With no fixed release date, though, Luckey and his team must balance costs against sticking to a schedule and using available technology. A 1080p version of the device was demoed in public just over a year after the original prototype’s public debut, but Luckey is aware that he cannot keep adding to the device’s scope ahead of release. “We want to ship the best technology possible, but that has to be balanced with schedule,” he says. “We can’t delay forever, no matter how good the parts are just a few months down the road. On top of that, you need to keep the price reasonable. If a device costs too much, it may as well not exist.”
Where once Luckey was concerned only with creating a product that would meet his own needs, today his ambition is far more wide-ranging. “Virtual reality is going to revolutionize life,” he says. “As the content library grows and the price diminishes, it is going to be a very attractive technology for consumers in all walks. Virtual reality provides more freedom for content creators than any other form, and allows us to simulate other art forms like movies, books, or traditional games. In that sense, it is the ultimate medium.”
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Retail sales were reported as above seasonal norms in June, and to the greatest extent since November 2016, with volumes expected to remain good for the time of year next month, according to the CBI’s latest Distributive Trades Survey.
The monthly survey – of 117 firms, including 56 retailers – was conducted between 26 May and 16 June. Across the distribution sector as a whole, it found that stock levels in relation to expected sales reached a record low in June (a question first asked in August 1983), with firms in the retail, wholesale and motor trades sectors all reporting relative stocks as too low. No improvement is expected next month.
Within the retail sector, grocers reported that sales remained above seasonal norms, as did sub-sectors related to home improvements (furniture & carpets, hardware & DIY). Department stores saw an upturn in their fortunes, with sales now average for the time of year. And although clothing stores reported that sales remined poor for the time of year, this was to a much lesser extent than last month.
Over the year to June, retail sales and orders grew at the fastest pace since August 2018 and September 2015, respectively. However, these indicators are less useful for assessing current conditions within the sector, as they compare sales and orders to June 2020, when activity was depressed by the national lockdown, which remained in force until the middle of that month.
Meanwhile, growth in internet sales slowed sharply in the year to June, to the weakest pace since April 2020 and well below the long-run average. (Sales growth in June 2020 was just above the long-run average). A similar pace of growth is expected next month.
Wholesalers reported the most positive sales performance in relation to seasonal norms since November 2018, while motor traders reported sales as good for the time of year to a greater extent than last month. Both expect sales to remain above seasonal norms next month.
Ben Jones, principal economist at the CBI, said: “After a generally gloomy 2021 so far, the sun finally shone for retailers in June, with seasonal sales volumes the strongest since November 2016. This was the latest sign that the success of the vaccination programme is feeding through to stronger consumer confidence which, along with the re-opening of hospitality, is encouraging shoppers back onto the streets.
But the sector remains a long way from a full recovery. The return of demand is patchy, with inner-city footfall still well down. The outlook is also clouded somewhat by supply pressures, with stocks seen as too low compared with expected sales, as logistical and capacity challenges continue to hamper global activity.
“Even as consumer demand returns, the legacy of lockdowns on retailers’ balance sheets remains. Many will welcome the rent moratorium extension, but more support is needed, starting with holding off on tapering existing business rate reliefs. “
- Sales were above seasonal norms to the greatest extent since November 2016 (+23% from -3% in May). Sales are expected to remain good for the time of year next month (+23%).
- Wholesalers reported the most positive sales performance in relation to seasonal norms since November 2018 (+34% from +18%), while motor traders reported sales as good for the time of year to a greater extent than last month (+16% from +6%). In both sub-sectors sales are expected to remain above seasonal norms next month (+29% and +19% respectively)
- Across the distribution sector, the volume of stocks in relation to expected sales reached a record low in June (-19% from -6%, question first asked in 1983), with all three main sectors reporting stocks as too low. Relative stock levels are expected to remain low next month (-22%).


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Earlier this month at the 2018 International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS), HP Inc. launched HP Metal Jet, the world’s most advanced 3D printing technology for the high volume manufacturing of production-grade metal parts. Providing up to 50 times more productivity at a significantly lower cost than other 3D printing methods, HP Metal Jet is being deployed by manufacturing leaders GKN Powder Metallurgy and Parmatech for the factory production of final parts. Customers placing orders include global stalwarts Volkswagen and Wilo and innovative vertical market leaders such as Primo Medical Group and OKAY Industries.
HP also launched the Metal Jet Production Service, enabling customers around the world to rapidly iterate new 3D part designs, produce final parts in volume, and integrate HP Metal Jet into their long-term production roadmaps.
“We are in the midst of a digital industrial revolution that is transforming the $12 trillion manufacturing industry. HP has helped lead this transformation by pioneering the 3D mass production of plastic parts and we are now doubling down with HP Metal Jet, a breakthrough metals 3D printing technology,” said Grant Hopkins, Managing Director, HP New Zealand. “The implications are huge – the auto, industrial, and medical sectors alone produce hundreds of billions of metal parts each year.
HP’s new Metal Jet 3D printing platform and Production Service unlocks the speed, quality, and economics to enable our customers to completely rethink the way they design, manufacture, and deliver new solutions in the digital age.”
HP Metal Jet is a groundbreaking, voxel-level binder jetting technology leveraging more than 30 years of HP printhead and advanced chemistries innovation. With a bed size of 430 x 320 x 200mm, 4x the nozzle redundancy and 2x the printbars, and significantly less binder by weight, HP Metal Jet delivers greater productivity and reliability at a low acquisition and operational cost compared to other metals 3D printing solutions. HP Metal Jet will start with stainless steel parts, delivering isotropic mechanical properties exceeding industry standards.
HP is partnering with GKN Powder Metallurgy to deploy HP Metal Jet in their factories to produce functional metal parts for auto and industrial leaders including Volkswagen and Wilo. GKN Powder Metallurgy is the world’s leading producer of materials and products using powder metallurgy technologies and includes the brands of GKN Sinter Metals, GKN Hoeganaes, and GKN Additive Manufacturing. The company produces more than three billion components per year and expects to print millions of production-grade HP Metal Jet parts for its customers across industries as early as next year.
“We’re at the tipping point of an exciting new era from which there will be no return: the future of mass production with 3D printing. HP’s new Metal Jet technology enables us to expand our business by taking on new opportunities that were previously cost prohibitive,” said Peter Oberparleiter, CEO of GKN Powder Metallurgy. “Our DNA and our expertise in powder production and metal part processing using digitally networked systems will enable us to drive industrialization across the whole additive manufacturing value stream. By combining the forces of HP and GKN Powder Metallurgy, we will push the productivity and capability of our customers to unprecedented levels based on the economic and technical advantages of HP Metal Jet technology.”
Volkswagen, one of the largest and most innovative vehicle makers in the world, is integrating HP Metal Jet into its long-term design and production roadmap. The collaboration between Volkswagen, GKN Powder Metallurgy and HP has resulted in the ability to move quickly to assess the manufacturing of mass-customizable parts such as individualized key rings and exterior-mounted name plates. VW‘s multi-year plan to use HP Metal Jet also includes the production of higher performance functional parts with significant structural requirements, such as gearshift knobs and mirror mounts. As new platforms such as electric vehicles enter mass production, HP Metal Jet is expected to be leveraged for additional applications such as the lightweighting of fully safety-certified metal parts.
“The auto industry is being revolutionized – not only do customers now expect personalization, but by 2025 the brands of Volkswagen Group will have introduced 80 new electric models,“ said Dr. Martin Goede, Head of Technology Planning and Development, Volkswagen. “A single car consists of six thousand to eight thousand different parts. A big advantage of an additive technology like HP Metal Jet is it allows us to produce many of these parts without first having to build manufacturing tools. By reducing the cycle time for the production of parts, we can realize a higer volume of mass production very quickly. That’s why HP’s new Metal Jet platform is a huge leap forward for the industry, and we look forward to raising the bar on what is possible to deliver more value and innovation for our customers.“
GKN Powder Metallurgy is also leveraging HP Metal Jet technology to produce cost-effective industrial parts with higher hydraulic efficiency for Wilo, a global leader for pumps and pump system solutions. Wilo is looking to HP Metal Jet technology to produce initial hydraulic parts such as impellers, diffusors and pump housings with widely variable dimensions that must withstand intense suction, pressure, and temperature fluctuations.
To serve the medical industry, HP is also partnering with Parmatech, an ATW Company, to expand mass production of Metal Jet parts for customers including OKAY Industries, Primo Medical Group, and others. Parmatech is a world leader in metal injection molding and has been a metals manufacturing pioneer for more than 40 years, specializing in producing low-cost, high-volume metal parts for the medical and industrial sectors.
“HP Metal Jet represents the first truly viable 3D technology for the industrial-scale production of metal parts. Our customers demand extreme performance, quality, and reliability and HP’s advanced technology and heritage of market disruption give us the confidence to deliver beyond expectations,“ said Rob Hall, President of Parmatech. “We are excited to deploy HP Metal Jet in our factories and begin manufacturing complex parts, such as surgical scissors and endoscopic surgical jaws, and new applications and geometries not possible with conventional metal fabrication technologies. HP Metal Jet technology will play a key role in our mission to develop innovative solutions for the unique challenges of our customers.“
In the first half of 2019, customers will be able to upload 3D design files and receive industrial-grade parts in large quantities from the new Metal Jet Production Service. The parts will be produced in collaboration with HP partners GKN Powder Metallurgy and Parmatech to ensure the highest standards of engineering and production quality.
Commercial HP Metal Jet solutions will be offered at under $399,000 and begin shipping in 2020 to early customers and with broad availability in 2021. Reservations for customers to pre-order Metal Jet systems are available now.


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New Delhi: Fashion and lifestyle ecommerce player, LimeRoad
today announced the launch of Hijab
collection on its platform which is a part of their modest fashion offering to consumers.
“As a style savvy brand, LimeRoad boasts of a beautiful catalogue of modern cultural clothing
. The portal has made live, a high-street range of hijabs and abayas that appeals to women who love to embrace global styles while staying within their own comfort zone of dressing,” Suchi Mukherjee
, founder & CEO, LimeRoad said.
She said a large population of women wear abayas as their primary clothing. “Today, hijabs and abayas have featured on international runways and more and more women are adopting these styles. We are proud to be a part of this global movement,” she added further.
Ranging from INR 299 to INR 2599, some of the top picks on LimeRoad includes teal it and steal it, bring back the boho, go for digital dazzle etc.
Price range of abayas start from INR 299 and go up till INR 3599.


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Drugs were behind the recent theft of a 50-inch television set from the Salmon Arm Walmart as well as a number of other thefts by the same man.
When Judge Dennis Morgan sentenced 45-year-old Craig Cleary in Provincial Court in Salmon Arm on Dec. 17, he said he knows Cleary well, and the underlying issue is drugs. Cleary, also known as Craig Burton, has 42 convictions, the majority property crimes.
“It’s a story we see way too often… If you could get yourself off of it you could lead a good life,” Morgan told him.
The court heard that on Nov. 21 about 9:30 p.m., Cleary left the Walmart with a number of items he hadn’t paid for including a 50-inch TV, headphones and an air purifier.
He and a female co-accused went to the Salmon Arm Travelodge where he was heard bragging about items stolen. His co-accused tried to sell the large TV out of a shopping cart.
Police were called and the manager took an officer to the room where numerous large boxes were found as well as the two suspects in the bathroom.
The officer returned the merchandise before the store had reported the theft to police, the court heard.
Cleary pleaded guilty to two counts, theft of property worth $5,000 or under, as well as breach of probation. He had been ordered to have no contact with his co-accused.
The judge said he would go along with a joint submission from Crown counsel and defence regarding sentencing. They had suggested a 90-day jail term.
Because Cleary had been in custody since Nov. 22, he was given time-and-a-half credit for 25 days in custody, amounting to 38 days. He will spend a further 52 days in prison.
Judge Morgan warned Cleary that when he gets out of jail, he will still be on probation from the sentence for a previous crime spree.


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New Delhi | Its been three days now since the truckers called off the strike. Transporters continued their nation wide strike for the third consecutive day today, disrupting supply of goods to various parts of the country. However, the government refused to budge on their demand for scrapping the present toll system.
Supply of essential goods such as milk, vegetables and medicines has been kept out of the purview of the indefinite strike, called by the apex transporters body, the All India Motor Transport Congress (AIMTC). According to reports from states including Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, goods supply was impacted.
For toll free India, our members will stage a peaceful dharna at Jantar Mantar today. We will continue our strike till the government comes out with some practical solution to our problem. We are not against paying toll, but we are demanding it in an annualised form, AIMTC President Bhim Wadhwa said.
The electronic-toll collection system as promised by the government is not practical, he said. AIMTC claims to have 87 lakh trucks and 20 lakh buses and tempos across the country under its fold. However, the government has refused to budge from its stance and said it cannot scrap the toll collection system.
Government told It is up to them to continue their strike. The government cannot scrap toll. We have already assured to implement electronic tolling system pan-India by December, government said. Gadkri yesterday appealed them to end the strike, but till now no one has taken any further steps to stop the strike.
AIMTC is demanding scrapping of the existing toll system, saying it is a tool of harassment, while it is seeking a one time payment of taxes and simplification of Tax Deducted at source (TDS) procedure. On the other hand, Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training (IFTRT) said AIMTC’s suggestion to have fixed annual toll is not rational.
According to the office-bearers of the Ludhiana Goods Transport Association, the strike led to loss of crores. The delivery of goods was also affected with the strike. Traders in the industrial city have no other option other than trucks to supply their goods to other stations.


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A unit of global OEM manufacturer AU Optronics is to halt production of polysilicon for the solar industry and focus instead on the less competitive ingot market.
M.Setek, which is based in Tokyo, issued a statement via AU Optronics that said the company no longer had a competitive advantage in operating in the solar polysilicon industry and is set to take a hit of $208 million to write down its assets, according to Bloomberg.
Changes in polysilicon supply and demand patterns have left M. Setek disadvantaged. Poly prices have fallen by more than 80% over the past five years as bigger players have entered into the solar industry to feed the insatiable demand for polysilicon. The effect has been a lowering of prices that has served to squeeze out some of the smaller players.
Data compiled by Bloomberg shows that M.Setek is no longer in the top ten makers of polysilicon, and will now focus exclusively on the production of ingots for the solar industry. The sector is now largely dominated by a handful of bigger producers, including Germanys Wacker Chemie, U.S. company Hemlock Semiconductor, Hong Kongs GCL Poly and South Koreas OCI.
"No volume polysilicon production by AU Optronics was tracked during the past couple of years, so this announcement is not surprising," Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) analyst Wang Xiaoting said.
The analyst added that the polysilicon industry in 2015 was bedeviled by more than 20% oversupply, "which was the intrinsic reason for a 30% drop of spot price over the year." The glut overhang is expected to continue throughout 2016.
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Senior scientist Petter Nekså and his colleagues at SINTEF and NTNU helped to launch the developments that made this CO2 refrigeration system for supermarkets a possibility – one of the first of its type in the world.
The prize was awarded to one of the Gemini Centres set up by the twin institutions of SINTEF and NTNU in the field of applied refrigeration technology, and was recently handed over at an international heat pump conference in Las Vegas.
Until recently, chemicals that break down ozone were used in refrigeration systems and heat pumps, but in 1987 an international convention agreed to ban the use of such compounds. The chemical industry soon launched a new substance as a replacement, but this turned out to be a powerful greenhouse gas.
This was the background for the decision by SINTEF and NTNU to utilise CO2 instead of other chemicals. When it is used in cooling systems, CO2 does not contribute to the greenhouse effect if it leaks out to the atmosphere, since it is essentially “borrowed” from industrial waste gases that would otherwise have been released to the atmosphere.
Using their own in-house refrigeration technology, SINTEF and NTNU were the first to demonstrate that CO2 can be used in vehicle air-conditioning systems without increasing fuel consumption.
The EU is currently drawing up a directive that will require all new vehicle models to have air-conditioning systems that do not contain the chemicals in use today. Vehicle manufacturers already have test cars on the road fitted with CO2-based air-conditioning. SINTEF and NTNU are also members of an EU project that will develop simple, inexpensive CO2 systems for small cars.
When the Japanese bathe
CO2 technology from SINTEF and NTNU is already a hit in Japanese houses, where it is used in heat pumps for tapwater and room heating. The systems are based on patented technology from SINTEF and NTNU, to which the Hydro-owned company Shecco Technology owns exclusive rights. Some 250,000 units have already been sold in Japan, where the authorities estimate than 5.2 million systems will be sold by 2010.
Cooling for stores too
One of the first CO2 refrigeration systems for supermarkets has recently been installed by ICA Tempe in Trondheim. SINTEF and NTNU helped to launch the developments that have made the new system, the first of its type in Norway, a possibility.
By Svein Tønseth


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Ahead of the release of Star Wars Pinball on Nintendo Switch, we speak to Zen Studios about the game’s new features.
The Borderlands 3 demo was one of the least remarkable appointments we had at E3 2019, but that's not necessarily the game's fault.
Konami continues to mine its gaming heritage with three new mini-consoles based on the PC Engine.
The MIX, or the Media Indie Exchange to use its Sunday name, is always one of the highlights of E3 week.
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is more than just a remaster of TT Games' previous Lego Star Wars efforts.
One of the most common party selections in the original game probably won't be a viable option in the Final Fantasy VII Remake.
You can keep your Cyberpunks and Watch Dogs – the smart money is on awkwardly flailing all over your friends.
One of the most impressive things we've seen so far at E3 2019 is the Final Fantasy VII Remake.
Why did Tim Schafer sell Double Fine to Xbox Game Studios? Here's his frank and refreshingly honest explanation.
We go hands on with the Poltergust G-00 with our first look at Luigi’s Mansion 3.
Find out more about the creation of Evil Genius 2: World Domination in a new developer commentary video.
Could the release of Alien Isolation on Nintendo Switch herald more Xbox and PS4 ports?
We went hands-on with Shenmue III at E3 2019 and it might just be the most fun we'll have all week. (Just not necessarily in the manner in which it's intended.)
We were in the audience for the Xbox E3 2019 press conference when Keanu showed up in Cyberpunk 2077.
Following the reveal at E3 2019, here's everything we know so far about Xbox Project Scarlett.
In our hands-on demo with Watch Dogs Legion, we roleplayed as a grandmother, stole a red London bus, and rode a drone around like the Green Goblin. Just a normal day in our nation's capital, really.
Nintendo celebrates E3 2019 with a week of discounts on some top-quality Nintendo Switch games.
Konami confirms a release date and new game modes for football simulation, PES 2020.
We've written this as an E3 survival guide, but it basically applies to any big geek event, like GDC, PAX, or Gamescom.
Here are the most noteworthy reveals from the E3 2019 Nintendo Direct, and why we think they're important.


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This November, Victoria’s Hillside Centre celebrates 19 years of supporting its community through their annual Night of Lights shopping evening.
Over 60 non-profits across the city sell tickets to the event, retaining all the proceeds of the $5.00 ticket price for their organizations. To date, Night of Lights has raised almost one million dollars towards community projects and programs in Greater Victoria.
From 6 to 9:30 pm on Sunday, November 17, ticket-holders will flock to the Centre to take advantage of exclusive in-store discounts and specials as well as food, entertainment and door prizes, including the grand prize of a $4,000 Travel Voucher.
Marketing Director Michele Paget says her team looks forward to this evening every year. “It’s such a great kick-off to the holidays and gets us all in the holiday spirit, plus our shoppers get to enjoy an evening loaded with activities. The event this year includes the Bubble Bus Co. and an Open Air Photo Studio, rock musician Dustin Childs and jazz musician Jonnie Bridgman, appetizers by Chef on the Run, amazing retailer offers and many more festive touches!”
If you are part of a non-profit organization or know of an organization that is looking for opportunities to fundraise, contact firstname.lastname@example.org.
Night of Lights tickets are available now for purchase at Hillside Guest Service, with the ticket sale proceeds there donated to BC Children’s Hospital Foundation.
For more information visit hillsidecentre.com/night-of-li//www.hillsidecentre.com/night-of-lights.